


This Empty Feeling Inside

by Lola_Rose_Robins



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Angst, Depression, Drug Abuse, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, I'm Sorry, Kaneki Ken as Sasaki Haise, Kaneki Ken | Sasaki Haise Has Issues, Nightmares, Parent Arima Kishou, Sasaki Haise - Freeform, Self-Harm, Soft Urie Kuki, but like very little comfort, quinx squad - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:13:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28301415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lola_Rose_Robins/pseuds/Lola_Rose_Robins
Summary: Haise never remembers the contents of his nightmares, but they leave him feeling empty. All he wants is to feel something again.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 40





	This Empty Feeling Inside

**Author's Note:**

> Please make sure you read the tags. Please make sure you're alright. 
> 
> What's this? A Tokyo Ghoul fic in 2020? You're damn right it is.
> 
> Hi there, I'm Lola Rose and my hobbies include torturing my favourite characters. Let's pray I never get the motivation to write a book...

Sasaki Haise awoke from his nightmare with a start and a strangled cry into the darkness of the night. What the contents of the dream had been, only God knows at this point,  _ and Kaneki.  _ Kane-who? It doesn’t matter.

As he sat up in the bed, his eyes frantically searching the dark bedroom for any danger, he tried to regain control over his breathing. When had he started hyperventilating?

Haise screwed his eyes shut tightly, ignoring the danger, or lack thereof. He calmly started to count down from ten and back up again, slowly going back and forth like an empty swing in the wind. At some point, however, his mind had switched over to counting down from a thousand, with intervals of seven. Why? It didn’t matter. All that was important, was that it worked. Haise’s breathing calmed down and the panic subsided. Silence returned to the house.

Still, something felt..off. Haise tried to think of what that could be, but found nothing. 

_ Wait, that’s it.  _ Haise found nothing, because there was nothing to find. Whatever had happened in that dream had left his mind strangely empty, devoid of any thought or emotion. The blind fear had gone away, but no other emotion had taken its place. It was like his mind, his soul, his entire being, had just packed up and left without even so much as a goodbye. 

_ Nothing but empty. _ Strange.

Haise looked over at his alarm clock. 3am. Was there any point in going back to sleep now? The boy sighed and, with a lot more effort than it usually would have taken, slung his legs over the side of the bed. His bare feet hit the cold floor. The nights were getting pretty cold by now, and thanks to Haise’s amazingly good luck, the heater happened to be broken that week. Still, the cold didn’t bother him much. 

Haise stumbled through the darkness on numb feet. Not willing to go through the effort of turning on a light, he continued stumbling until he reached the bathroom. 

Haise half fell into the small room, but managed to catch himself on the sink before he did. He didn’t bother closing the door behind him as he dragged his feet back to their original position, which was underneath his body, rather than behind it. 

When the danger of falling over had left, Haise removed one of his hands from the edge of the sink to turn on the tap and splash some cool water in his face. Maybe that would help wake up his mind. 

He transferred all of his weight onto his right hand, not completely trusting his legs yet, and lifted his head to face himself in the mirror.  _ Damn he looked like shit. _ With his other hand he softly poked at the discoloured skin underneath his eyes, his empty eyes. It didn’t help that the rest of his skin was even more pale than usual, making the contrast even greater. He ran his hand through his two-toned hair, softly pulling out a knot, pulling a few loose hairs out with it. 

Haise could faintly feel something drip onto his toe. It was warm and wet and ran slowly down the side of his foot. As he moved his foot slightly, he could feel something wet squelching underneath it. Slowly, sluggishly, Haise tilted his head down to see what it was. 

Splotches of red decorated both his right foot and the otherwise white tile underneath it, smaller specks of red spread out in different directions, littering his legs, the wall, the underside of the sink. Thin streams of the red liquid had run down the sides of his foot, and small puddles of it pooled underneath.  _ Now where had that come from? _

Haise slowly lifted his gaze again, landing on his, now blood-soaked, right hand, still resting on the sink, still carrying most of his weight. Without realizing he had placed his hand on the broken edge, from when Saiko had run into it head-first, trying to avoid an angry Shirazu. Saiko was fine, obviously, but the sink had suffered some damage. A large chunk had broken off of the corner, exposing sharp ceramic edges. One of those edges had cut straight though Haise’s skin and had now embedded itself deep inside his hand.

It hadn’t hurt. He hadn’t even noticed it at first.

Haise cautiously removed his hand, expecting the pain to hit at any moment, but it didn’t come.

_ Really, nothing?  _

Normally, his still half-asleep mind would have probably gone into a mild state of panic, before remembering that  _ oh yeah, I’m a ghoul. _

Haise didn’t know how long he’d been standing there, just staring at the palm of his hand as his flesh tried to heal around the small shards of ceramic that were still embedded in it, but what he did know, was that he was tired. What time was it? Like, 4am? Two hours of sleep, that’s fine, he’ll be fine. 

He quietly slipped, quite literally a few times (thanks to the blood), out of the bathroom and made his way back to his own room. 

Haise sat down on the edge of his bed and stared at the blank wall across from him, trying to conjure up a thought, any thought, in his empty mind. Nothing. 

Whatever, he’d figure it out in the morning. 

He laid down and pulled the blankets over his head. Soon, the air inside the cocoon grew hot and heavy and gently pulled him into a deep sleep.

  
  


Haise woke up late the next morning. The blankets were strewn about, indicating that his sleep, as always, had been restless. His limbs felt heavy and if he moved, they probably would’ve ached. Luckily he had the day off, and even if he hadn’t, he probably wouldn’t have gone anyway. 

He turned to lay on his side, fixing his eyes on the display of his alarm clock. 10am. Should he go down to fix breakfast for the kids? He probably should, shouldn’t he? He wanted to go down, wanted to take care of his family, he just...didn’t. He didn’t move an inch as his eyes watched the minutes pass and his mind, once again, cleared itself of any thoughts. 

Sunlight crept in through the windows, illuminating almost every corner of the room.  _ When had the sun come up?  _ Haise’s eyes had been staring at the clock, but they hadn’t seen the time go by. 11:34am.  _ Time flies when you’re having fun!  _ Was he though? Having fun. Sure, laying in bed was nice and all, but could it really be classified as fun? Haise didn’t know, he didn’t really care either. Soon, his mind let the subject go, and his eyes watched as the 4 turned to 5, turned to 6. 

Suddenly it was noon. Haise felt and heard his stomach growl. He should probably eat something, but he didn’t really want to move at the moment. He muffled a whimper by pressing his hand into his mouth. He didn’t want to go down just yet.

  
  


It had been weird, coming down into an empty kitchen at 10am, with no sign of his mentor, who could usually be found busying himself with cooking another delicious breakfast at this hour.

Oh well, maybe he just needed to catch up on some sleep, nothing wrong with that. Tooru opened the fridge and looked for inspiration inside.  _ Eggrolls? Eggrolls.  _ He may not be as good at cooking as Sasaki, but at least he could manage that. 

An hour later, he was joined by a very sleepy Shirazu and a slightly grumpy Urie. Saiko was still asleep and snoring loudly, as was to be expected. Still, no sign of Sasaki. Perhaps he was ill. He should probably go check on him, just to make sure he was alright. 

  
  


“Sassan?”

Tooru knocked on the door quietly. If Sasaki was truly asleep, he wouldn’t want to wake him. However, it was noon, no-one should still be asleep at this time. Mutsuki stared at the door in front of him, waiting for a reply that never came. He made a decision.

“I’m coming in, Sassan.”

He gently pushed the door open and looked inside. Sasaki was clearly awake, as his eyes were wide open, but he didn’t seem to be seeing anything, he was just staring blankly ahead. A bloodied hand rested on the pillow, next to his face, Sasaki’s hand. He didn’t seem to be bleeding anymore, but small patches of discolouration marked the spots where new skin had grown to replace missing tissue. Maybe Sassan had been the one to cut themselves on the bathroom sink? Yeah, that made sense. But still, cutting your hand does not leave you like this, especially not if you’re a ghoul. Frankly, it frightened Tooru to see his mentor like this, just completely devoid of emotion, his eyes empty and dull, entirely unaware of his surroundings. 

“Sassan?”

He’d spoken louder now. It worked. Haise blinked, his eyes looking just a little bit more alive after he’d done so.

  
  


Only now did he notice Mutsuki, standing halfway between the door and his bed.

“Oh, good morning Mucchan,” he said, trying to conjure up a smile, but it came out dull, not at all with the lively undertone that Haise’s voice usually carried. The smile felt forced, and he couldn’t imagine how bad it looked.

  
  


“Are you alright, Sassan?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Perfectly alright.” It didn’t sound very convincing, but it was clear that the conversation was over. Tooru hesitantly left the room. Sasaki didn’t seem ‘perfectly alright’ at all. 

  
  


The day had passed by in a haze. What had actually been several hours, had only felt like a few minutes. A whole day lost in the blink of an eye. Haise didn’t remember much of what he’d done, if anything at all. He’d been to some meetings, as his calendar suggested. His stomach was quiet, so he’d probably eaten at some point. When he looked down, he noticed some frosting on his shirt. A hug from Saiko, most likely.  _ Wasn’t this the same shirt I wore yesterday? _ Oh, so it was. He must have forgotten to change last night...and the night before. He’ll just put something fresh on tomorrow morning or something, right now there wasn’t really a point to it anyway. He was going to bed soon. Not that it was ridiculously late or anything, it was actually quite early, he was just tired of people and needed to be alone. The kids could handle themselves for one evening. 

Haise sat down on the bed and let his head fall backwards against the wall, maybe a bit too hard, where it landed with a dull thud. It didn’t hurt. Haise furrowed his brows and experimentally pulled his head away from the wall and threw it backwards again, a bit faster this time. Still no pain. He tried two more times, and a small dent had now formed in the wall, still no result. He tried once more, with force, something cracked, but Haise didn’t know whether this was his skull or the wall. He felt nothing. Something warm ran down the back of his neck. Could he even feel pain anymore? Could he feel  _ anything  _ anymore?

The question rang out, loud and clear, echoing around in his empty mind.  _ Well, could he? _

  
  


Special Class Investigator Arima Kishou stared ahead as he drove home, deep in thought. He’d been thinking about Haise. The young half-ghoul had been late for almost every meeting that day, stumbling in like a drunk, looking like a mess in general. 

If someone were to ask him about it he’d deny it, but he was seriously starting to worry about the boy. He’d been wearing the same outfit he’d worn during the previous meeting, two days prior, and it didn’t look like he’d taken it off at all in that time. He’d been wearing a single glove for whatever reason, Arima didn’t ask. He trusted Haise to take responsibility and ask for help, should he need it. Arima would help, of course he would, and he hoped Haise knew this. 

He stopped at a red light and briefly closed his eyes to try and recall any more details. Haise had looked pale, so the bags under his eyes stood in huge contrast. He’d been shaking a little, was he falling ill? If he was, the kid should just ask for a day off. Still, the single glove, dark, thick, fingerless, didn’t make sense. Arima thought about the few times he’d caught Haise picking at the glove, or the skin underneath. It was all very suspicious. 

  
  


“Do you guys think Sassan’s been acting weird lately?” Shirazu’s question had come out of nowhere. The quinx squad, including Urie, had all been quietly hanging out in the living room, minding their own business, but as soon as the question was out, they all, except Urie, leaned in and started talking. Sasaki was out, training with Arima, so they could talk freely without getting caught.

“Well, he has been sleeping more. A lot more,” Tooru noted. He’d been the one to pick up the slack and prepare breakfast every morning, so of course that was the main thing on his mind. The others nodded in agreement, even Urie. Sasaki had been sealing himself away in his room more and more, often excusing himself directly after dinner, sometimes even before, and only coming down well into the morning, on a few occasions he’d even be gone until the afternoon. Unless he had to go to meetings or training or something, obviously. On those days he’d come stumbling down the stairs and out the front door at the very last minute. He’d probably been late quite a few of those times already. 

“He also seems a lot more distant,” Shirazy added, “he barely even talks to us anymore. He just stays in his room all day, and night. I mean, I’d expect that kind of behaviour from Urie,” the boy in question raised his head and scowled at the mention of his name, “but even he is being more sociable than Sassan. It just doesn’t seem right.” 

“I miss maman...maybe we could have a movie night, or something to cheer him up,” Saiko exclaimed excitedly, but a serious undertone shone through. She was worried, very worried. She was also glad to know she’d not been the only one to notice her maman’s strange behaviour. 

Urie had nothing to add, but he had listened, even though he’d pretended not to. He’d heard what the others had said and committed it to memory. What for? He didn’t know yet. A weakness maybe, to exploit during training. It didn’t really matter right now. He lowered his gaze back to the notebook in his hands, where a sketch of some chrysanthemums was starting to take form. He’d have to get back to his room to get the colouring done, but right now he could just work on getting the lineart right. Silence had returned to the living room as the other teens got back to whatever they’d been doing in the first place. 

  
  


It had been nearly two months of this now. Haise had been looking worse every day. Most of the people at ccg were now also starting to notice the way he’d been carrying himself, no one mentioned anything. Besides, he’d only been late three times, so as long as he kept his punctuality up, there shouldn’t be any problem.

  
  


Urie just couldn’t take it any longer. He got up and stormed out of his room. Sasaki may be his superior, but that did not excuse him from keeping Urie awake with his strange noises, especially not at this time of night. This was just getting ridiculous! 

He moved without hesitation, stomping through the halls. He wasn’t afraid of waking anyone else up, since the others were out clubbing with Akira and some colleagues. No, tonight it was just him and Sasaki at the Chateau. He’d hoped for some peace and quiet, which, granted, he’d been getting a lot of, until a little after midnight, when weird noises started sounding from Sassan’s room. 

Finally, he reached the door. He’d been completely prepared to throw the piece of wood out of his way and start yelling, but something stopped him dead in his tracks before he could.  _ Was Sasaki...crying? _

Urie quietly pushed the door open, until the gap was wide enough to look in. He had to keep himself from gasping. Instead, he just stared at the scene before him, eyes wide, mouth hanging open slightly. 

Sasaki Haise, his mentor, someone who Urie, begrudgingly, looked up to, was seated on the floor, the messy floor, underneath his desk, his messy desk. His legs were sprawled out on the ground before him, clad in nothing but boxers his thighs were clearly visible, with patches of discoloured skin. He lifted his eyes up and noticed Sasaki dragging something across his arm, which was also covered in mismatched lines, all in different states of discolouration. Blood started trickling down his arm where he’d cut open the skin, dripping onto the floor beneath. 

_ How long had this been going on? How had none of them noticed anything?  _ Now that Urie thought about it, they had noticed something, they just hadn’t expected it to be this bad. Urie had actually noticed that Sasaki had started wearing more long-sleeved sweaters, even though it was nearing the end of spring and the weather was getting pretty warm, too warm for long-sleeved sweaters, or long-sleeved anything. When had that started? Two months ago? Three? Something like that.  _ Shit. _

  
  


Haise looked down at his arms, at the pale lines that decorated his skin in no particular pattern. It looked kind of pretty, like one of those pieces of abstract art, just on his body, rather than on canvas. It really wasn’t that different from a human getting a tattoo, was it? 

One more red line, drawn on skin, turning white, one more addition to the painting. Was that enough for today?  _ Yes, it was.  _ He shuffled around a little bit to get into a more comfortable position, which was surprisingly easy, given the spot he was in. Who knew that floors and tight spaces could be so comforting. No space for anyone else to come in and bother him with their words, no light to blind him, just peace and quiet. Haise loved his family, sure, but this spot was his and only his. 

A soft rattling came from his pocket. Haise reached a hand in and pulled out a small bottle of pills, sleeping pills. ‘For his nightmares,’ he’d said. Dr. Shiba had believed him. And they were, at first, for his nightmares. Now they were just something to dull the pain. Haise couldn’t help but smile at the irony of that. He went through so much trouble, just to feel something, only to then suppress it with medicine again. It was stupid, really, but it had become a habit, a pattern, something to hold on to.  _ Something to end him. _ Ignore that. Anyway, it was a pattern he found himself having difficulty to snap out of, but he didn’t really want to anymore. It helped him feel, but not too much. 

He shook two pills into his hand and brought them to his mouth, swallowing them dry. Would two be enough? He took two more, just to be sure. If you’ve got to wait fifteen minutes for the pills to start working, you don’t want to get the dosage wrong. He looked at the bottle in his hand. It was nearly empty.

He should get a refill during his next appointment with dr. Shiba...but that appointment was tomorrow, and he needed the bottle to be empty.

_ How many are left? _ He counted them slowly, losing count and restarting again a few times. He was probably just tired.  _ Four.  _ Four wasn’t that many, right? He emptied the bottle into his hands and stared at the four pills. 

A voice in the back of his mind reminded him that  _ this was a bad idea,  _ but he didn’t listen.

‘ _ What’s it gonna do? Kill me?’ _

He chuckled, out loud this time, before bringing his hand up and swallowing the last four pills. He felt the capsules struggling down his dry throat, but they went down.

He could barely hold his eyes open anymore, and his head was getting so incredibly heavy. He probably wouldn’t be able to make it back to the bed, even if he tried. He let his eyes wander around the room. Why was there light in here, it’s supposed to be dark...his eyes found the door, opened just far enough to let light inside. Something behind the door was blocking most of the light, thankfully, preventing it from flooding his room, his safe space, completely. Haise tried to focus his eyes on the figure, with trouble he recognised a face. It looked startled, with wide open eyes and mouth. Haise vaguely recognised two birthmarks, side by side, underneath the figure’s eye.  _ Urie. _

As soon as they’d made eye contact, Urie stepped out of view. His footsteps echoed down the hallway, or maybe it was just Haise’s mind that was echoing. 

The darkness swallowed him whole.

  
  


Haise woke up late the next day. He was laying in his own bed, with blankets tucked around him tightly, _ like a straight-jacket _ ...he glanced over at his alarm clock; 2pm. Didn’t he have training this morning? Well, it was too late for that now. He’d probably get an earful from Akira or Arima later, but that was future-Haise’s problem. Right now he was hungry, very hungry. He rolled over until he’d reached the edge of the mattress and positioned himself so that he’d fall legs first off the bed. He landed on one knee and struggled to keep his balance, but he managed to stay upright.  _ Another victory for Sasaki Haise! _

Even though he’d moved slowly, the movement was apparently still too sudden. His head was throbbing in pain and he had to lay his head back on the mattress as he waited for the pain to just go away. When it finally did, he pushed himself up on shaky legs. What was wrong with his body, what the hell had he done last night that- _ oh right, pills. _ Maybe it had been a bad idea after all.

He glanced over to his bedside table, where he usually kept the bottle. It wasn’t there right now. He’d need to find that before going to see dr. Shiba. He walked over to his door, feet dragging heavily over the floor. He was suddenly very thankful that his squad wasn’t getting as many cases.  _ Can’t even lift my own feet, how am I supposed to fight. Useless. _

Outside of his door, his foot suddenly hit something on the ground. He looked down. T was a piece of paper. Who had left that there? He picked it up and turned it around. The back of the page smacked him in the face with colour. When his mind had processed the suddenness and his eyes were finally able to focus, he recognised what was on the page. It was a painting, a rather nice one. It had some flowers on it.  _ Chrysanthemums, _ his brain helpfully supplied. There was some text at the bottom of the page. It took him a while to focus his eyes enough to read what it said.

‘For Sassan.’

Even in his current state, Haise couldn’t help but smile a little. A gift, for him? What had he ever done to deserve that?  _ Nothing,  _ shut up buzzkill. He stumbled back into his room to retrieve a picture frame. He gently placed the drawing inside and set it down on his nightstand.  _ There, that looks about right. _

He stumbled out of the room, glancing over his shoulder one last time. For the first time in months, he smiled to himself. Not to please or reassure anyone, no forced smile to be polite, no, this smile, however small, was genuine. Urie hadn’t missed this from his spot down the hallway where he pretended not to care about Sasaki as the older boy stumbled by. It wasn’t like he’d waited there for Sasaki to find it or anything, he’d done no such thing. 

When Haise stumbled past the young boy reading a book in the hallway, lost in his own world, he didn’t think much of it. Not that he thought much of anything these days. His mind was still blank, but at least he was well-rested today...now his mind could be empty, but with a little more pizzazz. The emptiness bounced around his skull like that damn dvd logo, and he wasn’t even fully awake yet. Oh joy.

  
  


Haise stumbled into the ccg building, absentmindedly greeting some of his colleagues, but thankfully not running into anyone who would require a more involved interaction than that. He’d successfully managed to get to and through his appointment with dr. Shiba and had even managed to get himself a new bottle of sleeping pills. 

As he made his way down the stairs, he kept his eyes glued to his feet, using all of his focus to avoid misstepping. He wasn’t really in the mood to deal with an embarrassing situation like that.

  
  


Special Class Investigator Kishou Arima had not expected to run into Sasaki Haise that day, and he certainly hadn’t expected it to happen in such a literal way. The run-in had shaken him out of his thoughts, but his face remained stoic as he looked down at the young half-ghoul in front of him.  _ He looks like shit.  _ Haise stared up at him with wide eyes, though it didn’t seem like he was really seeing him, more like staring straight through him. The boy looked scared, terrified almost.

“Special Class Arima-san! I-I apologize for missing training this morning, I must have overslept.” Haise let out a nervous laugh, but it felt different from his usual nervous laughter, it felt more forced.

“Don’t worry about it, Haise, you were excused.”

“I’ll...excused?” Haise seemed genuinely surprised. He visibly relaxed, the change was quite jarring. Had the kid really been that scared? What had he been expecting? A beating? Torture?

Arima softened his voice, but not too much. He did still have a reputation to uphold, “Yes. Urie-kun called me to say you weren’t feeling well.”  _ And he was clearly not exaggerating. _ He didn’t say the last bit out loud.

“He, he did?” Haise, again, seemed very surprised. Did he really have no idea?

  
  


Haise searched through the dark and dusty corners of his mind to try and find any reason for Urie, of all people, to call in sick for him. What had he seen? Why would he...oh.

It all clicked together in Haise’s mind. Urie’s face in the doorway, right before the darkness had swallowed him whole, looking more shocked than Haise had ever thought possible. The drawing...Urie was something of an artist, wasn’t he?

_ Wait, but if Urie knew, what had he told Arima? What had he told the others? How much did they know?!  _

Haise tried to calm himself down, but only grew more panicked. He barely registered Arima grabbing his shoulders and pushing him into a small room. Panic flashed before his eyes,  _ he was going to kill him, he should have stayed useful.  _ Dark spots danced before his eyes, stopping him from seeing anything  _ for the better. That way he didn’t have to watch his father-figure murder him.  _ He stumbled backwards until he found the wall, sliding down to the floor and exposing his neck, waiting for death. Every time he thought he’d finally reached the peak of his panic attack, he was hit with a new wave. His surroundings were no longer there, just darkness and fear. 

A sudden slap in his face woke him up, stunned. He opened his eyes to find Arima’s face, mere centimeters away from his own. The reaper’s grey eyes were uncharacteristically full of emotion; worry, concern. 

“Haise?” His voice was soft, caring even.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me. I swear it’ll never happen again!” Haise had tried to get it all out in a single breath, but given the fact that he’d just been hyperventilating a few seconds ago, he failed miserably.

  
  


“Please don’t kill me.” It had been spoken so silently, with such a small voce, that Arima had almost missed it.  _ Kill him? Why would he do that? _ He studied the boy’s face. He still looked scared, and panic attacks like that don’t just happen for no reason. Urie-kun had refused to give more details than ‘Sasaki-san isn’t feeling well’, but it was clear that there was a lot more going on than he’d previously thought.  _ Not feeling well...understatement of the century. _

He gently placed a hand on Haise’s shoulder in an attempt to comfort him. The boy flinched, but eventually relaxed and leaned into the touch a little.

“Haise, how did you get here? Did you take the car?” There was no way he’d allow him to drive home in this state. Haise just shook his head, his sagging curls moving as one tangled mess. 

Arima got to his feet and extended a hand to help Haise up. Haise accepted the help and got up as well, but as soon as he did his knees buckled and he fell forward again. Had it not been for Arima catching him, he probably would have face planted right into the stone tiles.

This wasn’t going to get them anywhere. Arima took one look at Haise, now a shaking sweaty mess, and made his decision. He picked the boy up and slung him over his shoulder, Haise did not protest.

Had he been anyone else, he would have received a lot of stares probably, but he was the reaper, so nobody would even dare to question him as he walked down the hallways with the now unconscious half-ghoul boy over his shoulder. 

He carefully placed Haise into his own car and drove back to the chateau. They were going to have to talk about this eventually. Both of them were probably looking forward to that an equal amount.

  
  


When the front door slammed open loudly, the quinxes spun around only to come face to face with the reaper, carrying their very unconscious mentor an his shoulder.

“What happened? Is mamman alright?” Saiko was the first to reach him, circling his legs like a hungry cat as he walked over to the empty couch to dump Haise’s body.

“I-I don’t know.”

It was jarring to see Arima like this. Unsure, worried, maybe even a little bit scared. Soft footsteps made their way down the stairs and Arima looked up to see Urie’s face peek around the corner. He beckoned the boy to come closer and sit down with them. Urie listened, he knew this was coming. 

“Care to explain this?” Arima waved his hand over Haise’s limp body. He’d done his best to sound stern, but it hadn’t come out as convincing as he’d hoped.

Urie didn’t say a word, but just quietly got up and walked over to Sasaki.

“Saiko, why don’t you go get some food or...something.” It was clearly an attempt to protect her, but saiko did not, in fact, ‘go get some food or something’. She wanted to know what had happened to her mamman, so she stayed. 

Urie sighed and started to roll up Haise’s sleeves, exposing the scarred skin, or as far as a ghoul can get scars. He then proceeded to pat down his mentor until he found what he was looking for. He placed the small bottle on the coffee table and left, heading back to his room to sulk some more. He’d done his part, the others could figure out the rest. 

  
  


Haise woke up to find himself back home, laying on the couch, surrounded by his family, except for Urie.

The tension in the room was palpable. What had happened?

He felt a cool breeze play along the skin of his arm... _ his arm! _ He quickly pulled down his sleeve and jumped off the couch, mumbling quiet apologies as he sprinted up the stairs. He could feel their judgemental stares burning into his back.  _ Great, they probably hated him now. _ He just wanted to get out, he needed to get away from them. He ran into his room and locked the door behind him, before stumbling over to his desk and crawling underneath it, where he curled himself up into a ball, trying to hide from the world.

  
  


Arima was left speechless, everyone was. He’d know Haise wasn't feeling too well, he’d noticed it during meetings and training sessions, but for it to be this bad! Urie had known, the others clearly hadn’t. Both Saiko and Ginshi were currently crying into a very overwhelmed Tooru’s shoulders. 

Arima slowly got to his feet, he had to talk to Haise, there was no avoiding it now. Talking and being social weren’t exactly his strong suits, but he had to do something. He walked up the stairs and headed for the door he knew to be Haise’s. Who knew what would lie beyond that door. 

He tried to open it, it was locked. He knocked a few times, knowing full well that haise wouldn’t answer. He kicked in the door, revealing the dark room that lay beyond.

The reaper tried the lightswitch, but the bulb had burst at some point. He slowly made his way through the room, making sure not to trip on any of the garments and random items that lay strewn about. Finally he reached the desk and turned on the small reading light. It wasn’t much, but at least he could see.

Haise was nowhere to be found, the room was empty. The bed was messy and stained. As Arima came closer, he noticed that the stains were dried blood. The sheets looked like they hadn’t been changed in months, which was probably true. 

He turned back towards the desk, and that’s when he saw him, a small, shaky lump of person, curled up into a ball underneath the desk. In a few quick paces, Arima was next to the desk and crouched down. Haise appeared to have fallen asleep. A gentle shake of his shoulder yielded no results.

“Haise?” His voice was gentle, as if he were talking to an injured animal, trying not to scare it off. The response came in the form of a few audible sniffles from the miserable pile of half-ghoul. Still, Haise refused to move. 

Arima sighed and crawled underneath the desk, leaning with his back against the wall and pulling Haise closer to him. The kid tried to struggle, but it was of no use and he soon found himself with his head laying on Arima’s lap, crying softly. Arima ran a hand through the boy’s tangled hair in an attempt to comfort him, there wasn’t much more he could think of at that moment. He was a reaper, not a therapist. 

When the quinx squad eventually found their way into the room, they found the two of them like that, passed out underneath the desk, tears running down both of their faces.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I know it's bad to talk trash about your own writing, but I just want to note that I have never reviewed a story in my life. Everything I have posted on here has been a first draft. That being said; if you catch any mistakes, please let me know so I can fix them.


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